Basic HTML Version
The emotion expressed in the verb
usually finds a visible expression. In Jer.
50:11 the Babylonians are denounced as being glad and “jubilant” over the pillage of
Israel. Their emotion is expressed externally by their skipping about like a threshing
heifer and neighing like stallions. The emotion represented in the verb (and concretized in
the noun
) is sometimes accompanied by dancing, singing, and playing musical
instruments. This was the sense when David was heralded by the women of Jerusalem as
he returned victorious over the Philistines (1 Sam. 18:6). This emotion is usually
described as the product of some external situation, circumstance, or experience, such as
found in the first biblical appearance of
&
God told Moses that Aaron was coming
to meet him and “when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart” (Exod. 4:14). This
passage speaks of inner feeling which is visibly expressed. When Aaron saw Moses, he
was overcome with joy and kissed him (v. 27).
Therefore, the verb
suggests three elements: (1) a spontaneous, unsustained
feeling of jubilance, (2) a feeling so strong that it finds expression in some external act,
and (3) a feeling prompted by some external and unsustained stimulus.
This verb is used intransitively signifying that the action is focused on the subject (cf.
1 Sam. 11:9). God is sometimes the subject, the one who “rejoices and is jubilant”: “The
glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works” (Ps. 104:31).
The godly are to “be glad in the Lord, and rejoice … and shout for joy …” (Ps. 32:11).
-
can also mean “to be joyful or glad.” In the place the Lord chooses, Israel is “to
be joyful” in all in which the Lord blesses them (Deut. 12:7). Used thus the verb
describes a state into which one places himself under given circumstances. It has a further
and technical sense describing all that one does in making a feast before God: “And ye
shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the
boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your
God seven days” (Lev. 23:40).
In a few cases the verb describes an ongoing state. In 1 Kings 4:20 the reign of
Solomon is summarized as follows: “Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by
the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry.”
B. Noun.
(
*
, 8057), “joy.” This noun, which also occurs in Ugaritic, is found 94
times in biblical Hebrew.
-
is both a technical term for the external expression of
“joy” (Gen. 31:27—the first biblical occurrence; cf. 1 Sam. 18:6; Jer. 50:11) and
(usually) a representation of the abstract feeling or concept “joy” (Deut. 28:47). In
another technical use this noun signifies the entire activity of making a feast before God:
“And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make
great mirth [literally, “to make a great rejoicing”] …” (Neh. 8:12).
The noun catches the concrete coloring of the verb, as in Isa. 55:12: “For ye shall go
out with joy … : the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and
all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
C. Adjective.
(
*
, 8056), “joyful; glad.” This adjective occurs 21 times in the Old
Testament. The first biblical occurrence is in Deut. 16:15: “Seven days shalt thou keep a